The comic deconstructs a snowclone or common idiom - "X called, they want their Y back." Usually, X is a year (like 2009 here), and Y is something very popular in that year that is seen as ridiculous in the present day.

Here, Megan notices a Three-Wolf Moon T-shirt that Cueball apparently owns. The Three-Wolf Moon is a shirt of three wolves howling at the moon that reached meme status when several people posted ironic reviews giving it supernatural powers on Amazon around late 2008.

Megan says the snowclone, but before she can finish, Cueball pretends to take it literally (that is, that the year 2009 actually called her) and admonishes her for not telling them about the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The comic was posted shortly after the latter, so it is reasonable to assume that it was created as a response to the disaster. Knowing Cueball, he's either preempting Megan's attempt to humiliate him and giving her a pretty good burn, or Cueball, being Cueball, actually thinks the past called.

The title text continues the snowclone, implying the end of humanity and/or the world will come about in 2017.

Discussion

I was too busy trading fashion tips, and they hung up before I could tell them. Davidy22[talk] 00:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The '90s called. They wanted my pogs back. But, due to inflation, they couldn't offer me enough money for me to be willing to sell. I told them my friend, Oscar, has some Pokémon stuff, but the '90s had no interest in that crap. I made the right choice to choose pogs over Pokémon. Society made the wrong one. But, I digress. The '90s are doing rather well, and they miss us.76.29.225.28 18:20, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

2017 called, but I couldn't understand what they were saying over all the screams.

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